NVIDIA Driver 361.43 Addresses 144Hz Power Issue

December 22, 2015September 5, 2016by Dan Hamilton

NVIDIA has released a new driver update that addresses a concerning power consumption bug. Previously we reported on testing done by PC Perspective that showed a large increase in power consumption in a user’s GPU when a G-Sync monitor was used past 120Hz. The GPU would be “triggered” by the high refresh rate to work on higher than necessary clockspeeds when idle and as a result was using more power than was actually needed. NVIDIA acknowledged that the problem existed and this is their first attempt at fixing it. Links to the 32-bit and 64-bit drivers are listed down below.

In their changelog for driver 361.43, NVIDIA has listed the following as a fixed issue “[GM20x] Clock speeds remain above idle at 144 Hz on desktop. [1631144]”. So far the reception to the update has been mixed with some claiming it fixed their idle clockspeeds while others are saying that they continue to have the issue. When installing the new driver be sure to remove your old one first and reboot after your installation of a new driver. Many skip these obvious steps and as a result aren’t actually seeing the new driver fully in action.

Among the other important changes made with the driver update is the inclusion of a new OpenGL extension that allows for NVIDIA SLI support on OpenGL applications used in Oculus and HTC Vive virtual reality headsets. According to NVIDIA your performance could nearly double and as a result should give you a far better VR experience. Also included is an FPS fix for users running Star Wars Battlefront in a SLI configuration. Some other fixes include signal loss fix that would occur in Rocket League after scoring the first goal. It also addresses frequent game crashes that happened on some GeForce GTX 860M-equipped notebooks